Apparently I was just featured on CNN’s “Inside the Blogs” segment. As much as I love the opportunity to provide cheat-sheet punditry for a bunch of people who are getting paid to pretend to do what I’m doing for free, lemme just say “thanks, but no thanks”. As much as I like the attention, I can’t ignore the fact that it’s coming from a news organization that’s been straddling the line between hard news and tabloid garbage for a while now.

CNN Viewers, the only reason you were pointed towards my site is because the head honchos at CNN realize that it’s easy to fill up a few minutes of airtime by quoting people who they wouldn’t invite to appear on their programs in the first place^{[1]Not that I have any interest in appearing on television.}. It’s a win-win situation for them. They show a couple of people reading from a computer screen, cash in on the “blog” trend, and get to free up additional resources to cover the latest celebrity trial, missing white woman, or whatever faux news that Larry King is covering^{[2]Who’s done five shows on psychics since Aug. 2000.}.

So, thanks for coming by, new readers. I hope you like what you see and decide to stick around for a while. Since CNN was kind enough to send people my way, I hope I can repay the favor by sending people back to their feedback page with this question :

“Why is the majority of the programming on your network trivial and uninformative bullshit?”

Who wants to bet that won’t be a topic on “Inside the Blogs” anytime soon?

UPDATE : The transcript has been posted and it perfectly sums up what’s so wrong about the “Inside the Blogs” segment :

SCHECHNER:^{[3]The transcript notes that Schechner’s title is “blog reporter”. I’ve never been one of those people who thinks being a blogger makes me a journalist, but if paraphrasing what I said makes her a “reporter”, doesn’t that merit a de facto promotion of some sort? Perhaps “self-published columnist” or something.} Now, we should also mention that now there’s outrage on the left because they say that Dick Durbin had nothing to apologize for and they’re mad at him for being weak on this issue. One of those doing a little parody^{[4]Since the primary purpose of my original post was to make a political point and not just score a cheap laugh, I think the term “satire” is more appropriate here, but whatever…} is Greg over TheTalentShow.org. This is cross- posted at Tom Tomorrow’s This Modern World, and he basically parodies, with an analogy that has to do with a statement saying, if I read this to you and didn’t tell you it was a U.S. senator speaking, who would you think it was? So, a little play there, but they’re not happy on the left, now, with Dick Durbin. Ed?

Jeez, they’ve done a brilliant job squeezing all the funny out of my original post. Not that I expect them to quote the whole thing verbatim, but this mention was about as meaningful as saying “In the comedy world, Chris Rock has some interesting things to say about race relations noting that black people often do things one way while white people do the same things differently. Funny stuff, Ed?”

Seriously though, this whole “Inside the Blogs” business is ludicrous. The fact that a professional worldwide newsgathering organization is devoting any time to an unpublished amateur like me should be seen as the equivalent of waving a white flag. If the opinions of bloggers are so valuable, invite Glenn Reynolds and Duncan Black to co-host a “Capital Gang” type show or something. I’m grateful to reach a larger audience, but for a company with the staff, experience, resources, and reach of CNN to go trolling around the blogosphere looking for content to fill five minutes of airtime every day is just sad….